WEBVTT - Paul Krugman on UFOs, AI and Room Temperature Superconductors 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.520 Hello, aud Loots listeners. We recorded an episode with our 0:00:03.560 --> 0:00:06.880 friends over at What Goes Up. It's live today, so 0:00:06.960 --> 0:00:10.320 go check it out. It's called the Adlots Crossover Episode. 0:00:10.480 --> 0:00:10.720 Yep. 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:14.120 We chatted with the hosts, Mike Reagan and Vildona Hirich 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:16.320 about a bunch of topics that are near and dear 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:18.840 to odd Lots listeners, ranging from the growing power of 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:24.439 organized labor, the trillion dollar coin, evs, bidenomics, and more. 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:27.520 You can find it on the What Goes Up Podcast, 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:30.760 available on Spotify, Apple, or anywhere else that you get 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:31.639 your podcast fix. 0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:45.680 Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. 0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:48.000 I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway. 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:50.920 Tracy, it feels like there are many things in the 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:53.559 news these days that are like on the edge of 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:56.320 reality and frankly science fiction. 0:00:56.520 --> 0:00:59.560 More evidence that we're living in the simulation. Yes, no, 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:02.840 you're absolutely right. So first of all, we had this 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:07.679 influx of AI technology. Everyone got very into chat GPT 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:12.040 and now everyone's talking about future AI applications. And then 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:16.000 we had let's see, oh, we have the excitement over 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:21.959 the possibility of a room temperature superconductor. And then even weirder. 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:25.800 We have a lot of talk about aliens. We had 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:30.600 the congressional hearings about UFOs recently. I actually saw someone 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:34.120 tie all of these things together recently. They thought that 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:37.600 the LK nine to nine coming out like the week 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:41.039 after the congressional hearings or the week of was evidence 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:43.600 that there are in fact aliens and the technology has 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:44.520 come from them. 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:47.040 So they take that with a grain of likes, like 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:49.200 left this little trail of yes for us. 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:50.000 That's interesting. 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:52.200 Well, I think one of the conspiracy theories is the 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:54.920 reason it feels like all of this is popping up 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:58.440 now and sort of going into hyper drive is because 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:02.280 the uh, I don't know, the powers that be are 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:05.880 laying the groundwork for us to actually find out there 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:08.640 are aliens. So they're sort of dripping it out and 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:11.960 now the pace is picking up, and so it's coming Joe. 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:14.960 So here's the thing. I do not believe in it. 0:02:15.560 --> 0:02:18.399 I'm like a deep UFO skeptic to the point where 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:20.880 I've almost like tuned out all the news. If we 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:23.800 do have a room temperature superconductor, I don't even know 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:25.760 what that means. Like I see all these people like, 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:27.520 oh my god, we are so back, this is going 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:29.560 to change the world. I still don't really understand the 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:32.959 significance AI. I think it's pretty cool, but I don't 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:34.560 know what it's going to do and yet in terms 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:37.560 of the economy. So when you're faced with all these 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:40.600 sci fi things, Tracy like, what kind of guests do 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:41.000 you think? 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:43.880 Who comes to mind? Is someone who talking about Who's the. 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:48.160 First person I call? Yeah, well, I guess, uh, we 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:49.120 have the perfect guests. 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:50.920 We have the perfect guest. We are going to be 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:54.880 speaking with Paul Krugman, opinion writer for The New York Times, 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:57.840 professor at City University of New York, of course, a 0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:00.880 Nobel Prize winner in economics. And I read on the 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:03.800 internet that he was inspired to be an economist because 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:07.000 of science fiction, at least according to a website I'm reading. 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:10.960 And so I think to understand the economics, the implications, 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:14.079 the thoughts are on aliens, AI, superconductors, what they mean 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:16.880 for the world and the economy. Obviously, the first name 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:18.600 we calls Paul's. I think this is your first time 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:20.400 on our podcast. So, Paul, thank you so much for 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:20.760 coming on. 0:03:20.760 --> 0:03:21.639 Odd lots. 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:24.240 Oh thanks, I think it is my first time. 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:27.400 I'm so proud that the first time you're coming on 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:30.600 all thoughts is to talk about aliens. I'm so happy, I. 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:33.880 Know, of all the various things we should be talking about. 0:03:33.919 --> 0:03:36.160 But hey, I'm pretty bored with inflation. 0:03:36.240 --> 0:03:40.440 Yeah, that inflation, the FED soft landing fiscal policy, the 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:43.960 six hundred dollars checks. This recovery versus the other one 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:46.280 is so boring. It's so tired. Paul. Do you think 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:50.480 there could be a life elsewhere in the galaxy? 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:54.200 I would think that it's extremely unlikely that there isn't. 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:59.680 I mean, it's there is an argument that says that, 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:05.760 you know, particularly the complex life, may require some very 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:09.640 very special circumstances, then we might actually be alone out here. 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:14.720 But that's well, I guess that sounds unlikely. It doesn'tseem 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:17.120 like that it should be that hard for there to 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:21.320 be someplace else where complex life has arisen. But here's 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:25.320 an argument for that don't see very often, which is 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:28.440 that if there is other intelligent life out there, just 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:32.520 given the timescale of things, it must have evolved hundreds 0:04:32.560 --> 0:04:35.960 of millions of years before we did. So if there 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:39.200 are aliens out there, they are if either wipe themselves 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:42.400 out one way or another or are on a level 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:46.200 so far beyond us that you know, the meaningful interaction 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:50.920 is impossible. So in terms of there being actual aliens, 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:54.200 you know, landing and kidnapping people and all of that, 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:56.799 that doesn't seem to me to be a very plausible story. 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:00.120 So can I ask a step back question, which is 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:02.880 you know, Joe mentioned that he read on the internet 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:06.280 always a reliable source, that you got into economics because 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:08.840 of your interest in science fiction. I remember you wrote 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:10.960 a paper, I think it's a very long time ago, 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:15.040 a theory of interstellar trade. But why does this area 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:17.360 interest you? How did you get into you? 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:19.880 Why did you pretty much? 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:25.039 Oh? Yeah, so it's very specific. I read as a 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:30.760 teenager Isakasimov's Foundation novels, and if anybody's ever read the novels, 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:35.680 they're about how galactic civilization is collapsing but is saved 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:39.680 by mathematical social scientists. And I wanted to be one 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:42.560 of those guys. So that's how I got into economics, 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:44.679 or at least that's the story I like to tell, 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:48.400 which is also, by the way, why why I cannot 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:52.480 bear to watch the Apple TV Foundation series, which completely 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:56.280 ditches the whole premise. There may not be good TV, 0:05:56.400 --> 0:05:58.760 but it has nothing to do with what Isakasimov wrote. 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:02.000 So but anyway, wait, it was quite specific. 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:03.800 In science fiction Economists Save. 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:08.520 The World in one particular, a classic science fiction series, 0:06:08.640 --> 0:06:12.719 and they're not economists exactly, they're mathematical social scientists. But 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:15.159 you know, that's as close as I could get is 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:16.760 doing economics. 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:21.400 You did write a paper, as Tracy mentioned, on interstellar trade. 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:23.919 What did you What is that all about? 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:26.680 I mean, like, what is what would make say, interstellar 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:29.679 trade any different between trade between yous and China. 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:33.120 It's the paper I wrote when I was very very young. 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:36.560 I was a frustrated assistant professor, and it finally got 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:40.480 published decades later. And so with mostly a blowoff steam paper, 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:42.839 I was having so fun with the fact that, well, look, 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:47.119 shipping times for interstellar commerce would be very very long. 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:48.800 You know, not the time it takes to get from 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:51.720 Sharing High to Los Angeles, but the climate takes to 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:57.280 cross twenty life years and at that point the interest 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:01.120 costs on shipping, yes, up in transit are going to 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:04.200 be a pretty significant part of the expense. But how 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:06.480 much time is spent on transit Because of the theory 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:09.480 of relativity we know that the amount of time received 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:11.880 on the spaceship is going to be different from the 0:07:12.280 --> 0:07:15.800 amount of time perceived on a planet that remains stationary. 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:18.880 And it's always all kind of silly. But you know, 0:07:19.240 --> 0:07:21.560 as I said, I think in the introduction that that 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:25.720 the results of this paper will be true but useless, 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:28.240 which is the opposite of what is typical in economics. 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:32.320 Wait, I thought that was typical, true but useless. I 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:35.240 thought that was what's typical in economics. All right, Well, 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:38.280 I'm sorry not to not to malign the whole profession. 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:42.440 Sorry, I had some fun and helped helped keep me 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:45.600 more or less sane during those you know, pre ten 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:47.920 year years that every academic has to go through. 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:50.800 Was it pure reviewed, I can't imagine. 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:54.520 But no. Actually, well, actually I sent it off The 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:57.480 Journal of Political Economy used to have a joke paper 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:00.920 section at the end, miscellany. I sent it and the 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:05.360 then editor didn't get any of the references. There were, 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:07.960 in fact, references to Isaac Asimov, and so he sent 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:12.960 why why is the planet named Trantor? And I, you know, 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:15.440 we need revisions, And I said, I'm not going to 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:17.760 do that, so I just let it sit. But it 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:21.120 hits circulated kind of the samisdot for a long time, 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:26.200 and eventually the Journal of Economic Inquiry contacted me and 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:29.080 we said, we've heard about this paper you once wrote, 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:30.200 can we publish it? 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:34.400 So I feel like not to keep diving onto this 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:36.880 one paper. But you know, if it if it takes 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:39.640 an incredibly long time to ship something from here to 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:43.520 the other planet, is the But the people on the 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:46.760 ship don't perceive it as long as those of us 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:49.920 on Earth, right, because time is slower time, Okay. 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:53.160 And yes, that's the point. If you're traveling at close 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:55.360 to the speed of light, you can do that, then 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:58.400 none of this it makes any sense. Then the subjective 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:01.839 time is going to be much And I actually then 0:09:01.920 --> 0:09:05.880 went on very fancy economic steer improving to say that 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:09.080 that doesn't matter because the relevant opportunity costs is the 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:10.360 time it takes on the planet. 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:13.240 Anyway, I'm looking at it now. I found it online. 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:15.400 There's some great it's really funny. 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:15.760 Yeah. 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:18.040 Also, like in a very dry way, there's a line 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:22.440 that like interplanetary trade, while of considerable empirical interest, raises 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:25.679 no major theoretical problems. Among the authors who have not 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:28.880 pointed this out are Oland and Samuelson. I love that. 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:33.400 Yeah, Actually, Jeff Frankel, you may know that if Harvard 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:36.240 wrote it. A sort of companion paper around the same 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:39.160 time called is Their Trade with Other Planets, in which 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:41.839 he pointed out that if you sum up total world 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:45.839 exports and total world imports, you know, countries report the 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:48.920 amount the export they don't actually match. Oh yeah, and 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:52.800 that the world as a whole appears to export more 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:54.199 than it imports. Yeah. 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:58.400 Every statistical agency around the world wants to flatter their 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:01.520 numbers of exports and a little bit off the imports. 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:05.000 I guess, yeah, maybe there there are for right, Yeah, 0:10:05.320 --> 0:10:08.559 and a fair bit yeah stuff that is not Also 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:11.439 that it's just if you smuggle stuff in past customs, 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:14.160 it shows up as an export but not as an import. 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:17.080 Right Anyway, do you pay attention to things like the 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:21.079 UFO hearings, like right now? Like how engaged are you? 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:22.280 Like when you see these headlines? 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:26.760 I think We've got enough. You know, there's enough. There's 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:29.640 enough weird stuff in the world. Although I will say that, 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:32.599 by the way, the theory that says that the aliens 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:38.160 are selectively releasing technologies that's a subplot in the movie 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:40.760 men in black and I hope people remember this. But 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:46.120 the agency that employees will smith is how they financed 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:50.960 themselves by selectively releasing alien technologies. I think that Bell 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:54.319 Crow was supposed to be one of them about that, 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:57.920 so that that's so you really should be. It should 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:00.960 be even more conspiratorial than people are. It's not just 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:03.200 that the aliens are doing this because they're about to 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:06.400 be found out. It's that the government agents in black 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:09.880 suits are selectively releasing these alien technologies. 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:13.200 Well, let me ask I guess the big question, which is, 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:17.920 how would you, as an economist, you know, a rigorous, 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:22.120 well grounded researcher in this field, how would you go 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:28.599 about thinking or incorporating something like aliens slash alien technology 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:30.640 into the way you think about the economy. 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:35.400 Yeah, the aliens, I have absolutely no idea. I mean again, 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:39.040 it's just if there are aliens out there, if they exist, 0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:43.960 they almost have to be immensely more advanced, basically on 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:45.960 a different plane. And it's not clear that they would 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:49.359 have any interest in dealing with us. But the technologies, 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:54.160 if there are for whatever reason, whether it's they're leaking 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:57.400 out of Area fifty one where there are really big 0:11:57.520 --> 0:12:03.720 technological things happening. Of course, the technological progress is the 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:08.160 ultimately the main driver of economic growth. So these are 0:12:08.200 --> 0:12:11.319 important things things if they are if they pan. 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:32.080 Out, let's talk about technological progress as a driver of 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:35.240 economic growth because it seems like that. So it's like, Okay, 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:37.840 there is this thing that people are talking about, which 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:41.880 is the possibility of superconductors that can exist at room 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:45.480 temperature instead of really cold temperatures, which supposedly might have 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:49.079 all kinds of implications for battery tech or power transmission 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:52.520 or electricity consumption. I don't really totally get it. I'm 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:54.920 not a signed this, but it seems good. But on 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:58.360 the other hand, technologies exist and they are exciting, but 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:01.520 they don't necessarily show up in the economic aggregates. They 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:04.040 don't suddenly make GDP growth grow from three to three 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:07.000 percent to ten percent just because there's some new breakthrough. 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:10.240 Why don't they Why don't we get technological inventions that 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:13.600 suddenly caused GDP growth to grow at a much faster pace. 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:18.320 Oh? Well, me, we certainly do get inventions that make 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:21.880 a difference that show up a lot. I mean, so 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:24.720 if you think about, yeah, we have a pretty good 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:28.600 idea there was an acceleration in US productivity growth for 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:33.000 about ten years from the mid nineties to the mid naughties. 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:36.640 That was something like one percent a year faster growth 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:41.680 than before or since, which we think was because business 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:44.320 finally figured out what to do with it. And some 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:46.480 of that's the Internet, it's it's just actually some of 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:48.800 it is finally figuring out how to use barcodes to 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:51.920 do effective inventory management, you know, more prosaic things. But 0:13:52.360 --> 0:13:57.120 basically there was a clear bump in productivity that's was 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:01.240 associated with the rise of IT, networks and all of that. 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:05.319 And you could say, well, that's it. All we got 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:08.760 was ten years of one percent faster growth. But that's 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:13.040 a ten percent bigger economy, and there's almost no conceivable 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:16.920 economic policy that would raise you as growth that much. Right, So, 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:20.120 even what was relative to a lot of what people 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:24.840 had hoped for or predicted, even though the results of 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:29.080 it have been somewhat disappointing, there's still huge relative to 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:33.400 anything that you know that any presidential candidate could plausibly 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:35.680 promise to accomplish. 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:40.280 How good are we at actually measuring technology's impact on productivity? 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:43.040 Because I remember this was a talking point a few 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:46.960 years ago the idea that well, technology is in fact improving, 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:50.080 but the way that it's improving and sort of feeding 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:55.000 into the economy is not well captured by statistical methods. 0:14:55.520 --> 0:14:57.360 There's actually true levels of that. First of all, the 0:14:57.360 --> 0:15:02.440 way that we actually of measure technology is god awful 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:05.240 except not clear how else you do it. I mean, 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:08.600 we think that we have ways of measuring the contributions 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:12.640 of tangible stuff like an increased stock of capital to 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:16.920 economic growth. And what economists do is they add up 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:21.280 all of those things. That's growth accounting, and then whatever's 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:24.360 left they say that's technology. You know, it's a really 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:27.840 pretty poor technique. It's basically, technology is the measure of 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:31.440 what you can't explain otherwise. That's not great. But on 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:35.160 top of that, then there's the unmeasured. As you say, 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:38.400 we don't have a very good handle on. You know, 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:43.600 what is the value of streamed entertainment one way or another? 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:47.760 You know, for me, I'm really into live musical performances 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:51.080 and can't get into you know, can't make time in 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:53.280 my life to go to as many as I would 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:55.520 like to. But I can watch a lot of live 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:59.120 musical performances on YouTube. That's a pretty big. I would 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:02.120 probably be willing to pay thousands of dollars a year 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:05.400 for that. As it happens, I don't have to pay that, 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:10.240 but it's and that's not captured by the GDP statistics. 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:12.680 And there's probably a bunch of things like that. To 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:16.800 take something that's less sexy, but healthcare, the fact that 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:19.880 doctors can treat lots of things that were untreatable before 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:22.720 is a really big thing. But you know, it has 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:25.160 always been true, but not always, but it's been true 0:16:25.200 --> 0:16:27.400 for a very very long time. You know, if you 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:30.920 if you start from the late nineteenth century when you 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:34.440 started to finally get big improvements in public health because 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:37.920 the people stopped getting their their drinking water from a 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:40.760 well next to the outhouse, those are huge gains that 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:44.040 are really not at all captured by our official statistics. 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:47.440 So probably it's the case. Uh, you know, there's been 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:50.160 much more economic growth than the numbers show, or the 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:52.560 much more, much more improvement than the quality of life 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:53.800 anyway than the numbers show. 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:55.880 I'm glad you brought up the live music. 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:58.040 I was talking to Tracy earlier, and I have this 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:00.400 memory of us running into each other. It might have 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:03.520 been like twenty eleven or twenty twelve at some conference 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:06.080 in New York City and everyone else is mingling and 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:08.720 you were smartly in the corner watching I think a 0:17:08.720 --> 0:17:11.280 live video of the Arcade fire in twenty eleven. 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:12.120 Twenty jobs. 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:15.480 Who do you like the days any band wrecks? 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:17.560 Oh wow, it's fine. 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:22.320 And I worry when I say this that I'm going 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:25.840 to insult bands I love by forgetting to mention them. 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:28.639 But the last concert I went to, which was just 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:31.800 at the beginning of the summer, was Lark and Poe, 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:35.720 which is a sisters from Atlanta who do mostly the 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:39.560 blues and are just incredible. I'm away for the summer. 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:42.840 I went to a little I won't get undisclosed located 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:44.600 by way. I went to just a bunch of local 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:50.800 musicians doing calling themselves the Grateful Dread regularly inspired Grateful 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:53.800 Dead covers, but which was great fun. But the next 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:55.760 thing I'm going to do something called a band has 0:17:55.760 --> 0:17:59.520 been around for a while, old War Paint and does 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:03.159 sort of vaguely psychedelic stuff. I mean, he's saying a 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:05.960 boy genius. They've been getting quite a lot of play. 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:11.040 But actually the troubling I like the more intimate concerts. Yeah, 0:18:11.080 --> 0:18:14.280 and the next Boy Genius performance is at Madison Square Garden. 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:18.160 Sorry that's I love the band, but I wouldn't love 0:18:18.200 --> 0:18:20.600 that experience. So you know, there's a bunch. I mean, 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:24.119 that's the thing I subscribed to. I think around around 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:28.560 forty channels on YouTube which are almost all indie musicians 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:29.960 of one form or another, and. 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:32.520 I'm gonna have to check out Lark and Poe. I'm 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:34.280 looking them up now. It looks really good. 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:35.959 It looks like the kind of thing that I would like. 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:36.920 I want to go back. 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:41.679 We're talking about technological impacts on macro, and someone's going 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:44.840 to get really mad. I've defended the fact the sort 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:49.240 of famous infamous internet fax machine comment on the sort 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:52.360 that you made, because it doesn't seem like one percent 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:57.440 growth even over ten years, is really changes the economy 0:18:57.560 --> 0:18:59.600 like that much or as much as you would think, 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:03.000 given there's sort of like huge upheaval that we've seen 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:05.800 that the Internet caused. Like, is there any way to 0:19:05.840 --> 0:19:09.880 sort of know early on or in real time what 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:12.679 a technology is going to do to the economy or 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:14.680 is it the only kind of thing where you can 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:16.080 say afterwards? 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:18.120 This seems to be what happened here. 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:21.240 Okay. What people don't know, by the way, is that 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:24.320 comment about the Internet and the fax machine was in 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:27.800 the context of a piece that was meant to be funny. 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:35.199 I've taken a lot of flak on Twitter, Paul, and 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:37.480 now I'm discovering that I was defending. 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:41.000 No. I think it is actually defensible, and I will 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:43.119 agree with you on that. But what was actually happening 0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:45.439 was that was a piece where before I worked for 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:47.000 The Times, so I was asked to write a piece 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:51.160 looking back from one hundred years in the future at 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:53.480 what had happened, and so I wrote that, you know 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:56.360 a bunch of things, and many of them were deliberately counterintuitive, 0:19:56.680 --> 0:19:58.600 some of which have turned out to be true, and 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:00.760 some whatnot that they if you want it. The piece 0:20:00.920 --> 0:20:03.959 ends by saying that my day job is working at 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:06.840 a vernet at a veterinarian, but I'm hoping that this 0:20:06.920 --> 0:20:10.639 piece will get me on the lecture circuit. But the 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:14.800 other point was, in fact, if you're looking for the 0:20:14.880 --> 0:20:21.200 transformative economic effects of the Internet, they are pretty elusive 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:26.639 in the data. Actually, take a even more extreme example, 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:30.320 the smartphones. The iPhone is introduced, I think in two 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:34.480 thousand and six, and if you look at the official 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:38.480 productivity numbers, the period since two thousand and six has 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:43.399 been lousy for productivity. It's been a long productivity drought. 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:46.200 The boom and productivity such as it was the boom 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:49.200 let was between about ninety five and two thousand and five, 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:52.840 which is more much more the fax machine era than 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:53.600 the Internet era. 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:56.200 Okay, I have a really basic question, which is, if 0:20:56.200 --> 0:21:00.840 you get a brand new, world changing technology like the 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:05.600 Internet or say a room temperature superconductor, would that count 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:11.600 as like an exogenous shock or an indigenous. 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:16.720 I mean, at some level everything's in dodgeness, right, At 0:21:16.720 --> 0:21:19.720 some level it's all quantum mechanics. But in terms of 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:26.439 being something that look that the long sweep of technological 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:29.240 progress that begins in about two centuries ago or a 0:21:29.240 --> 0:21:33.639 bit more, that's clearly endogenous. Given that we had whatever 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:36.040 it was, the change in mindset, the change in the 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:40.159 way that people behave that caused the Industrial Revolution and 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:42.840 everything that followed, then of course there were going to 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:46.439 be a lot of explorations of new possibilities, lots of 0:21:46.440 --> 0:21:51.880 new technologies. Any individual technology is there's a strong element 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:57.280 of we stumbled on something, and so when you stumble 0:21:57.320 --> 0:22:01.120 on something that actually has big economic implication, that's even 0:22:01.200 --> 0:22:04.520 more fortuitous. It's really not predictable in advance. Either way. 0:22:04.560 --> 0:22:07.320 You can have something like I think many people would 0:22:07.359 --> 0:22:11.560 have expected to see a much bigger visible impact on 0:22:12.680 --> 0:22:16.320 the economy from smartphones than we appear to have seen. 0:22:17.080 --> 0:22:18.960 But on the other hand, who would have thought that 0:22:19.040 --> 0:22:22.160 shipping containers would matter as much as they have turned 0:22:22.200 --> 0:22:25.480 out to for the global economy. So it's really in 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:29.520 the sense of being really hard to have predicted either 0:22:29.560 --> 0:22:31.840